Green Room

Confirmed: Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan, Rand Paul to address CPAC 2013

Say, what do thesethreegentlemen have in common? CPAC typically publishes a long list of “invited speakers,” then confirms participants on a rolling basis. So far, these are the only three announcements they’ve blasted out to the media, perhaps indicating that these particular individuals were — shall we say — proactive about RSVP-ing. Glaringly absent from the ‘invited’ roster is another rumored 2016 hopeful who has maintained an arm’s length relationship with the conference throughout his relatively brief political career. One wonders if he’ll be more willing to play ball with conservatives after this coming November. Meanwhile, two intriguing, out-of-the-box invitees to CPAC 2013 are generating some buzz: Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada’s conservative party, and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. I have no insight into how Harper’s team might weigh the domestic politics of accepting or declining this invitation (how would a speech to a room of intensely conservative Americans play up north?), but I’d be shocked if Netanyahu agreed to address the gathering. It’s true that Bibi hasn’t shied away from publicly challenging President Obama — and the two leaders’ fraught relationship likely took another frosty turn, in light of the Hagel SecDef nomination — but speaking at a conference like CPAC would be widely interpreted as an overt gesture of hostility. I don’t think Netanyahu has any incentive to needlessly antagonize any American president in such a manner.

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